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Morgan calls for 'head on' response, says winning trophies not above fighting racism in Cricket

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England world cup winning captain Eoin Morgan has condemned the racism fiasco at Yorkshire County Cricket Club and called for a “head-on” response to the matter that he rated of an “extreme nature”. He went on to say that dealing with such issues rank highly on his priority list than winning global trophies and batted for “significant change” that would have a bigger impact than successful careers at the international level.

He said the game of cricket does not deserve issues such as the one that unfolded with Azeem Rafiq at Yorkshire and said that the culture of the England team is built on “inclusivity and diversity”.

"In matters of an extreme or serious nature like these are, they need to be met head on," Morgan said. "For us as a team, that's exactly what we want to see. The investigation's ongoing and live at the moment so only time will tell what happens, but I think the actions by the board have demonstrated how seriously the ECB are taking how this has been handled. Yes, we want to see the sport in a great light but equally, if there's an issue as serious as this we want it dealt with as well.

"First and foremost, probably more so for the last two to three years, our culture has been built around inclusivity and diversity. It's actually been quite a strong part of our game. For that period of time, we have been active about talking and actioning things that show meaningful change.

"Being a part of the significant change [is something] that we feel will lead to something that will be bigger than any of our careers or any of the trophies that we win"

"We are very serious about it. We firmly believe that there is no place in our sport for any type of discrimination, and I think the actions of the ECB board to Yorkshire have indicated how serious they are about dealing with issues like this."

There have been recent developments in the racism row at Yorkshire with multiple names made in the report made by the county being made public. First, Gary Ballance came forward admitting he was the one named for calling Azeem a “P..i” and then former England Ashes-winning captain Michael Vaughan came out saying he has been named in the report. 

However, Vaughan denied allegations and said that he never made those remarks against Azeem or other players of Asian origin and Ballance termed his words as part of exchanges between two very close friends who interact with each other in a lot of “inappropriate words”.

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